The director that I watched three
films is Akira Kurosawa. The three films of his that I watched were Hidden Fortress,
Rashomon, and Dreams. Narrative and structure wise, the most straightforward
but different film of the three is Hidden Fortress. Hidden Fortress had a more
linear narrative than the two others. It is interesting looking at the
structure of the three films because they are all different. The structure of
Hidden Fortress follows a simple three-act structure following the journey of
two peasants finding and protecting a princess. The structure of Rashomon has a
present time that incorporates different point of views of a similar event. The
main structure of Dreams is the inclusion of multiple short stories or events
all put together with little to no connection between each.
Conceptually and structurally there
are strong similarities between Dreams and Roshomon. Both films don’t have one
long linear narrative. They both have of a lot of parts that are all somewhat
connected or related to at least one other part. With these broken parts,
Kurosawa opens out minds to a lot more questions and ideas as opposed to just
being entertained guided by a simple story. In Roshomon, the audience questions
the truth of a big story after getting the insight from different angles of it.
The audience is questioning the meaning and purpose of each piece of the big story
within Dreams.
A similarity between Roshomon and
Hidden Fortress, and many of his other films is the use of the actor Toshiro
Mifune. In Roshomon Mifune played an interesting character, the Bandit. His
actions and thoughts were over exaggerated to replicate the behaviors of
Japanese folklore. This character was quite different from the one he played in
Hidden Fortress as the General. This character was more stoic, responsible, and
strong than the Bandit character. Kurosawa had a good and long connection with
Mifune, which is apparent in the diverse characters he entrusted him to play.
They found strong chemistry with each other and knew what each other wanted and
how to communicate it.
One similarity between all of them
is his heavy use of all the creative tools and techniques in which to create a
visual narrative. Not only are the scripts thought provoking and meaningful, but
also they are masterfully conveyed visually. Kurosawa creates all of these
worlds through incredible production design elements and revealing them through
beautiful cinematography. The other huge element that he takes advantage of in
the art of filmmaking is the use of editing, where he can create any idea he
wants the audience to think and at any time he chooses just by placing all of
the visual information in the order he wants.
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